What Is Win.MxResIcn.Heur.Gen and How to Remove It?

Win.MxResIcn.Heur.Gen is a VirusTotal detection by the MaxSecure engine that appears to frequently get triggered by apps and files that should be safe. This leads to many users questioning its validity and rightfully so. Indeed, the Win.MxResIcn.Heur.Gen is often a false positive, but is this always the case, and how can you secure your PC if there’s an actual virus in it? This post explains it all.

Is Win.MxResIcn.Heur.Gen a False Positive?

If a file you uploaded to VirusTotal triggers the Win.MxResIcn.Heur.Gen detection from MaxSecure but no other AV engine spots anything, there are very high chances that you are looking at a false positive. This, however, changes if one or more other security engines flag the file as unsafe.

If you scanned something on your PC with VirusTotal and you got it detected as malware by MaxSecure as well as other vendors, you might have an actual Trojan Horse on your PC. In this case, it’s best to investigate further and clean your system from anything that may not be safe.

How to Remove Win.MxResIcn.Heur.Gen (Detailed Tutorial)

If you think that the Win.MxResIcn.Heur.Gen detection is not a false positive but an actual indication of malware in your system, the next guide will help you secure your machine. Be sure to complete each step from each section to ensure that there’s no malware left on your PC.

Clean the Task Scheduler

Many Trojan threats and other forms of malware will secretly create tasks in the Task Scheduler that will run automatically and reinstall the virus into the system in case you manage to remove it. That’s why it’s important to first start by checking for such tasks and deleting them:

1. Press Winkey + R, copy-paste “taskschd. msc” into the Run bar, and press Enter.
2. Click the Task Scheduler Library (top-left) and look through the various tasks. If anything there seems unusual, right-click it, go to Properties > Actions, and see what action is performed by the task.
   
3. If the suspicious task is set to run something that looks harmful, navigate to its folder path, and delete everything there. Important: only delete files/folders that you are sure aren’t from your system!
4. Next, close the Properties window, right-click the task again, and click Delete.

Now that you’ve cleaned the Task Scheduler, it’s time to proceed to the actual removal of the malware.

Task Manager Cleanup

It’s very important to carefully look through the processes in your Task Manager, get rid of any unfamiliar and potentially malicious processes, and delete their data to be able to remove the virus.

1. Open the Task Manager by pressing Ctrl + Shift + Esc, and click the More Details option if you don’t see all processes.
2. Then sort the processes by CPU use and then by Memory use. Look for anything questionable and unfamiliar.
   
3. If you spot a sketchy process, first write down its exact name somewhere. Then right-click the process, open its File Location Folder, and delete everything there.
4. You might be blocked from deleting certain files and folders. If that happens, download Lock Hunter (it’s a free tool), install it on your PC, and then right-click an item you can’t delete. Then select the “What’s locking this file/folder” and click Delete it! in the next window.
5. Use Lock Hunter to delete all other malware files and folders.
6. Then return to the Task Manager, right-click the malicious process again, and click End Task to quit it.

It’s critical that you perform these steps for all questionable and potentially harmful processes in the Task Manager.

Uninstall Malicious Apps

The likely source of the malware is some kind of rogue app installed on your computer. You must delete that too to secure your PC:

1. Click the Start Menu, type Apps & Features, and press Enter.
   
2. Sort the list of installed apps by their installation date and then look at the most recent items.
3. If anything there looks odd, and you think it might be malicious or unwanted, click it and then click Uninstall. Before you complete the removal, be sure to remember (or better yet, write down) the name of the rogue app.
4. Perform the removal steps in the uninstaller to delete the app from your PC.

There could be multiple rogue apps all linked to the same malware, so be sure to get rid of everything that doesn’t look safe.

Registry Cleanup

Finally, you should also pay a visit to the Registry Editor, search it for rogue entries linked to the malware, and delete them:

1. Press Winkey + R, type regedit, hit Enter, and click Yes.
2. Press Ctrl + F and then type the process name you wrote when cleaning the Task Manager.
   
3. Click Find Next and if anything is found, delete it. Click Find Next again, delete the next thing, and proceed until all rogue entries are deleted.
4. Rinse and repeat with any other process names you’ve written down. Also, do the same with the names of any apps you deleted in the previous section.

Once you’ve done everything, there should no longer be any malware on your computer. Still, we recommend scanning your PC with a reliable security tool to confirm it’s clean.

Run an Anti-malware Tool (Optional)

Finally, if you still think there’s malware on your computer, we strongly recommend running a full scan with the anti-malware tool included on this page. The program will find every last bit of malicious data and clear it for you so that you can be certain your PC is malware-free.

What Software Triggers the Win.MxResIcn.Heur.Gen Detection?

There are all sorts of legitimate apps that will cause MaxSecure to flag them with Win.MxResIcn.Heur.Gen. Common examples are popular game emulation tools like MAME and MEmu, torrenting programs like uTorrent, and lots of open-source software installers from GitHub.

Most of the time, users know that the flagged file or software is safe and that they don’t need to worry. However, if you scanned something you aren’t sure about, and it got flagged, then it’s best to take a conservative approach and treat the software as a possible threat.

Why Are There So Many Win.MxResIcn.Heur.Gen False Positives?

The main reason MaxSecure’s AV engine flags so many programs and files (especially executables) with Win.MxResIcn.Heur.Gen has to do with the way it works. MaxSecure has heuristic detection (“Heur”) which means it monitors the behavior of the software it scans for anything that seems out of the ordinary.

If the scanned software runs unusual system calls, network requests, or commands, this tells the antivirus that something might be wrong with it. And to play it safe, the AV directly warns you with the Win.MxResIcn.Heur.Gen detection. What this basically means is that the antivirus doesn’t recognize any particular type of malware, but notices some sort of unusual behavior.

This type of detection is especially important for spotting newly released threats and is one of the only working methods to spot Ransomware on time. However, it also leads to many false positives as exemplified by Win.MxResIcn.Heur.Gen.

Why You Still Need to Be Careful With Win.MxResIcn.Heur.Gen Detections

Even if Win.MxResIcn.Heur.Gen is often a false positive detection by MaxSecure, this doesn’t mean you should take lightly its warning. Yes, if nothing else on VirusTotal flags the file as a threat, you probably don’t need to worry, but you must still be aware the scanned file acts in an unusual way.

There’s a reason why open-source software gets frequently flagged with Win.MxResIcn.Heur.Gen. Such apps often lack the security of professionally-made software and could be easily hijacked and exploited by real malware.

And, once again, if the Win.MxResIcn.Heur.Gen warning is coupled with detections from other AVs, then you definitely need to pay attention and take the necessary measures to secure your PC.